Activity, Helping

Shoprite Partners Tosin Quota Int’l Foundation To End Hunger

Santa for Widows which has been a yearly event amongst other events of Tosin Quota International Foundation for the past five years of establishing the NGO to empower dejected widows in the society and also feed them took place on Saturday, 19th of December, 2020. This year’s event took place in a slum area in Makoko, Yaba.

Prior to this date, Miss Oluwatosin with the Ngo team went all the way to survey the environment and also the widows in that area, to enable them to know the widows who are really in dire need of help. From their investigation, they were able to discover that many widows and their children are actually living in abject poverty and they can’t even have one decent meal a day. One of the widows, Mrs Ganiyu Sarah, mother of seven (7) months old twins, who lost her husband in May 2020. In tears, she told TQIF’s team that the twin’s food and diaper have finished and the burden is too much on her.

After proper selection of these widows, they were invited to our office at Johnson, Pedro, Bariga for questioning, this time, it was the Founder, Miss Olayiwola Tosin that asked them questions regarding the kind of businesses they want to do, when this has been concluded on. Miss Olayiwola Tosin took the selected widows to Mile 12 market on Friday, 18th of December, 2020 to purchase the items needed for their startup.

Two of these widows requested for grinding machines and these machines were bought and handed over to them. A seventy years old widow, who is among the selected ones said she wants to be selling kerosene and a 100 litres of kerosene was also bought in Mile 12 market, another widow also told Miss Tosin, that she wants to sell foodstuffs and the items were also bought in a small scale for start-up, another widow also told the Ngo team that she wants to sell provisions and items were also made available for her.

The Foundation being on a mission to help redefine the widows’ narrative made a life insurance policy of #1,000,000 for the widows of which the premium will be paid by the Foundation so that their children can have something to fall back when the uncertain happens. A  Microfinance Account was opened for them, in a situation where they need a soft loan the Foundation will stand in as a guarantor for them, to enable them to expand their businesses.

Shoprite partnered TQIF to end hunger by donating #100,000 gift cards and these gift cards were used to purchase food items for the widows. The items bought using the gift cards were distributed to these widows on the day of the empowerment. Also, Unusual School which is also an NGO with the sole mission of reaching the unreached was present at the event, promised to help one of the widows’ children through school, since she is yet to be in school and her mother can’t afford it. All these are in the pursuit to help make these dejected widows smile again.